AI Appreciation Day used to be an easy occasion, a moment to marvel at how quickly the technology could write, summarize or analyze. In 2026, that novelty has faded, and something more substantial has taken its place. AI now sits inside the systems finance teams, security leaders, clinicians, insurers and retailers rely on to do their jobs, which means its value is no longer measured by what it can generate, but by whether it can be trusted with the responsibility it has already been handed.
We asked leaders across finance, cybersecurity, communications, healthcare, insurance and retail what that responsibility looks like from where they sit. Their answers span very different problems: explainability in the office of the CFO, governance gaps hiding in everyday communications, the accelerating pace of cyber risk, time given back to overworked clinicians, data trapped in disconnected systems, and the case for treating AI with the same caution as any powerful new technology. Read together, they suggest AI Appreciation Day has quietly become less about celebrating what AI can do, and more about proving it deserves the trust it’s being given.
“The first generation of enterprise AI proved that machines could generate answers. The next generation has to prove they can generate business outcomes. Finance is where that transition is happening first because every recommendation must be explainable, every action must be governed, and every result must stand up to scrutiny. That’s why AI Appreciation Day is no longer about celebrating possibility. It’s about recognizing that AI is becoming operational infrastructure for the modern Office of the CFO.”
— Rohit Gupta, CEO, Auditoria.AI
“AI Appreciation Day is a good reminder that AI’s greatest value isn’t in replacing people. It’s in removing repetitive work so people can focus on higher-value decisions. But AI is also exposing something many organizations have overlooked for years. Communication governance gaps that once affected a handful of messages can now be replicated at scale in seconds. AI hasn’t created those problems. It’s simply made them impossible to ignore. That’s why organizations need to think about governance before they think about automation.”
— Karl Bagci, Director of IT and Information Security, Exclaimer
AI deserves appreciation, but not blind admiration. It is has already changed the pace of cyber risk. Attackers can move faster, test more ideas, and find exploits at a scale that security teams were not built for. This does not make AI bad, but it makes AI-enabled visibility and governance essential. Businesses need to understand where AI is being used, which models they depend on, and where those dependencies create exposure.. Companies need to do the hard work of analyzing both their use of AI, and the data that drives it, or they run the risk of becoming its victim.”
— Paul Stokes, Co-Founder and CEO, Prevalent AI
“When people talk about appreciating AI, they often focus on what the technology can do. I think we should appreciate it for something much more important: its ability to give people their time and expertise back. In healthcare, some of our most experienced clinicians spend huge portions of their day navigating administrative processes instead of caring for patients. AI gives us an opportunity to change that. Not by replacing clinical judgment, but by making that expertise available more quickly, more consistently, and at a far greater scale. If AI allows a nurse to spend more time with patients instead of paperwork, or helps someone access treatment days or weeks sooner, that’s something worth celebrating.”
— Ganesh Padmanabhan, CEO and co-founder of Autonomize AI
“AI Appreciation Day shouldn’t just be about celebrating what AI can do. It should also be a reminder to use it responsibly. Across many organizations, AI is spreading faster than the policies, knowledge, and governance needed to support it. That’s creating a new form of shadow AI where employees rely on disconnected tools, inconsistent information, and prompts that no one can oversee. AI delivers its greatest value when it becomes part of a trusted knowledge ecosystem, not when it operates in isolation.”
— Poonacha Kongetira, Co-founder and CEO, Classie
“What I appreciate most about AI is its ability to connect intelligence that has traditionally lived in silos. But AI is only as good as the context it receives. In insurance, customer data, policy information, portfolio performance, and external market signals often sit across different systems, leaving AI with an incomplete picture. Bringing that intelligence together gives insurers something much more valuable than faster answers. It gives them better decisions. That’s where the next generation of AI in insurance needs to go.”
— Erez Barak, Chief Technology Officer, Earnix
“AI Appreciation Day feels a little like throwing a party for fire. Fire cooks your food and heats your home, and it also burns the house down. What fire deserves isn’t applause, it’s respect, and a smoke detector. AI is the same. Every prior general-purpose technology – electricity, the automobile, aviation – got safer because we treated it as dangerous first and useful second. With AI we’ve reversed the order, and that worries me. If we want a day worth celebrating, make it AI Accountability Day. Appreciate the systems that can be audited, that ask before they act, and that keep a human in the loop. Those are the ones that earn it.”
— Binny Gill, Founder and CEO, Kognitos
“AI Appreciation Day should be more than a celebration of artificial intelligence; it should be about championing better business decisions. Working with independent grocers and smaller retailers, we see that AI represents a chance to achieve the kind of business visibility and insight that has long given larger chains a competitive edge. But that potential can only be realized with the right foundation. When customer, promotion, e-commerce, and loyalty data remain trapped in disconnected systems, AI simply amplifies those silos instead of delivering meaningful intelligence. Retailers that unify their commerce data and connect their operations using AI will improve margins, personalize shopper experiences, and compete with far greater confidence. That’s the AI worth appreciating.”
— Ravi Achanta, Founder and CEO, RSA America
